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Sunday, September 18, 2016

And we're done. This has been both the longest and most artistically complex Raptormaniacs storyline to date (neither of which is saying much, I realize), so it was fun for me to make if nothing else. Until next time!

Friday, September 16, 2016

The explanation I had in my mind for how Remex can speak with a piece of paper in his mouth was that closed-mouth vocalizations are common in archosaurs, but it could equally be explained by the same cartoon logic that allows Skull to speak at all.

Rainbow Dash can canonically support at least four other similarly-sized ponies in flight. My Little Maniraptors are meant to be slightly smaller than the largest specimens of Velociraptor, so the combined weight of Ostrom and Skull is plausibly in or just above the ballpark of a four-fold increase in Rainbow's mass. She's a little winded afterward, though. I had Fluttershy assist her in early drafts of the story, but I couldn't find a good opportunity to have Fluttershy exit the mech without throwing off the timing of the narrative. Rainbow's grasping feet are artistic license, as I expound on here.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

I had to have Rarity do something at least somewhat cool, as I felt she ended up drawing the short straw for this plot. That's a shame, as even though she's not my favorite MLP character, she's probably the most interesting main character as far as characterization goes, which is not at all apparent in this story. In my defense, there are thirteen major characters in this arc, give or take a few. That's comparable to the number of major players in Captain America: Civil War, and this is a comic with less than twenty pages rather than a two-hour movie. In any case, it has been noted by others that in the show, Rarity almost always resorts to physical means of combat on the rare occasion that fighting is called for, despite being a magical unicorn. That's pretty cool in itself, but have you seen her multitask? Her telekinesis would be quite potent were she ever inclined to use it violently.

Yes, I confess the "Twilight as a glorified battery" plot point was an excuse to keep her out of the main action. Twilight is my favorite character, but she gets enough heroic moments in the original show.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

It is convenient that MLP has done an analogous "fictional character turns out to be real all along" situation, even if I'm not the biggest fan of that episode. (Have I been talking more about things I don'tlike about the show rather than things I like? I enjoy the show, I swear.)

Funnily, Daring Do is already an expy of a different character from mainstream fiction (Indiana Jones), but Rainbow Dash doesn't need to know that.

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

In which I demonstrate that I cannot draw elephants. Must be why those gomphotheres never showed up back in the day.

I would have liked to do more scenes like this, showing interactions between the Raptormaniacs and My Little Maniraptor characters, but I feel that it would have dragged the story on for too long, so I'll leave it up to imagination what happened with the other groups that split up on this page.

Last point of note, achievement unlocked: drawing Fluttershy in flight. Next goal: drawing Rainbow Dash not in flight.

Monday, September 5, 2016

Celestia is a woefully underused character on the original show. From a narrative perspective, it's entirely understandable that she needs to be written out regularly so the heroines can resolve problems on their own, but it feels like at least half the time she's sidelined in ways that seem undignified for such a reputedly powerful and wise character.

Fortunately, Raptormaniacs runs on absurdity, so I'm allowed to come up with silly reasons for why powerful characters aren't around to help when they're needed.

Saturday, September 3, 2016

I am not at all a fan of the Equestria Girls spin-off film series of MLP. (The sequels were admittedly slight improvements over the first installment, but that's not a high bar to reach.) It is perhaps ironic that I had to reference it a fair bit for this storyline, considering that it is the closest we have to canon regarding interdimensional shenanigans in MLP-verse. Hence, Twilight's exposition in the third panel (and Savape's jab at it).

Friday, September 2, 2016

Besides Skull, Dinky probably would be the most unusual of the main cast from the perspective of sapient maniraptors from the Mesozoic. A euornithine whose size and spatial ecology are more typical of an enantiornithine? Sounds wrong. At least he's a granivore.

Thursday, September 1, 2016

There was meant to be a sign explaining the K-Pg extinction in the background of the panel in which Remex talks about it, but there ended up being no room for it. I had to cut it out reluctantly, as it was one of the few times the museum setting is actually prominently depicted in this comic. In other news, this page also provides an initial sense of scale among the characters of this arc. My Little Maniraptors are not too little compared to some other maniraptors, even though they would be considered small animals by a human.

Bonus: Why the K-Pg extinction will never occur in My Little Maniraptor. (For those unaware, Celestia controls the sun.)